


I have seen the sun break through

by ComplicatedLight



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Inconclusive discussions about the nature of poetry and God, M/M, The weather ships them!, Walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 07:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13806162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComplicatedLight/pseuds/ComplicatedLight
Summary: New Year's Day: a walk in the countryside and a new beginning . . .





	1. Early morning, just awake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lindenharp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindenharp/gifts).



> Written for the lovely Lindenharp in the Lewis Winter Challenge 2018

When his phone goes, Robbie’s awake, though he hasn’t been for long. He’s comfortable and warm in bed, and so he’s just been lying there, listening to the quiet creaking of the house as the central heating comes on and starts to lift the night’s chill. He can tell without opening his eyes that it’s still properly dark outside, and he’s enjoying the feeling of not having to immediately launch himself out of bed and get on with the business of getting ready for work. It’s only one day’s holiday, but he’s glad of it, given that he’s had to work most of Christmas. He’s just starting to drift off again when his phone rings. Years of early morning callouts mean that his hand finds it without him even having to open his eyes. He knows it can only be James at this hour, today, but he glances at the screen just to make sure. Seven o’clock. _Jesus._

“Morning, James.” He yawns as the words come out; his voice is sleep-rough and purposely quiet—he’s feeling reluctant to disturb the early morning peace.

“Happy New Year, sir. Are you alright?” James’ voice sounds hushed too, as if he’s trying to soften his interruption of Robbie’s peace and quiet.

Robbie yawns again. “Happy New Year. I’m good, just not quite awake yet. It’s a bit early. You OK?”

“I’m fine. Sorry about the early hour. I’ve just had a look at the weather forecast and it isn’t great. I wanted to see what you think before you get all your walking stuff on and make your sandwiches.”

“You’re up already then, are you?”

There’s a slight pause at the other end. “No, not yet.” James yawns. “You know, it is possible to get the internet on a phone in the comfort of one’s bed.”

“I know. It just wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d been up since the crack of dawn, that’s all.”

He hears James shift around. “You getting up now, James?”

“No, I was just getting more comfortable.”

“OK.” For some reason that pleases him. He gets an image of James in bed, face surrounded by a drift of snowy white sheets. He’s never actually seen James’ bedroom; in fact, he’s only been to his flat a handful of times. He finds himself wondering if James has a duvet, like everyone else, or whether he has old-fashioned blankets and a bedspread. Whatever it is, he’s pretty certain it’ll all be very plain and tasteful—no floral monstrosities for Hathaway. He smiles to himself in the dark.

“You still there, sir?”

“Aye.”

“Thought you’d drifted off.”

“Still here. Go on then, tell me the worst.”

“The worst? About what? The year to come? Myself?”

“Well, I had the weather in mind, but if you’ve got some personal scandal to share, I’m all ears.”

There’s a muffled snort. “A bit too early in the day for confessions. The Met Office says grey cloud and between twenty and forty percent chance of rain most of the day for Swindon and its environs. The BBC says pretty much the same. Weather.com, as quoted by Google, says a high chance of rain about lunchtime, and the little cloud symbols stay a troublingly dark shade of grey all afternoon. I’ve tried to check the forecast for the villages around where we’d be walking, but they all just have the same forecast as Swindon.”

“You’ve been shopping around for weather, trying to find the best deal? I’m not sure it works like that.”

“Just consulting several sources to see if their stories match-up.”

“Your day job’s showing, Sergeant. What about temperature?”

“Fairly mild; well, chilly first thing but getting up to twelve degrees—that’s low fifties in old money.”

“I’m not that stuck in the past, thank you very much. Anyway, it’ll be a damn sight colder up on that ridgeway, if we make it up there. Especially if it’s breezy.”

“You’d better put your thermal long-johns on then, sir, if we’re still going?”

“You having second thoughts?”

There’s the sound of sheets rustling again, amplified by the phone to a loud crackling in Robbie’s ear. “I’m just quite comfortable here. Right now I’m struggling to picture myself striding up a muddy hill in the driving rain.”

Funnily enough, Robbie can picture James—all long legs and hi-tech backpack—walking a few steps ahead of him as they make their way along a narrow path up the side of a hill. “Well, it was your idea James—a bracing walk to start the year—it’s fine if you want to change your mind. I’m happy either way.” And he is. He’s been looking forward to the walk with James, to the two of them getting away from work for a day, blowing the cobwebs away. He can’t say that the clambering up rain-swept hills part of the plan hugely appeals to him, but having a bit of a laugh and seeing some nice countryside, maybe a pint in a country pub—he has been looking forward to all that. But right now he’s feeling no great urge to get on with it. There are definitely worst things than lying in bed, all warm and comfortable, quietly chatting with James before the rest of the world has started stirring. For a few moments Robbie listens to James’ breathing—he can practically hear James weighing up the pros and cons. Eventually, there’s a decisive intake of breath and Robbie knows they’re going walking.

“Let’s do it. It’ll be good to get out of Oxford; feel the wind in our hair.”

Robbie snorts, softly. “Those of us who’ve got hair.” James’ most recent haircut had been on the severe side, to say the least.

“You can be very mean, sir.”

“So can your barber.”

He can feel James smiling all the way down the line. “I don’t go to a barber, I go to a unisex salon, where I see Melanie, who understands my coiffureal needs perfectly, thank you very much.”

Robbie considers making some joke about bisexual salons but thinks better of it.

James continues. “Although I do have some unease about the term unisex; uni is obviously from the Latin unus, meaning one, whereas unisex salons cater for all sexes, not just one. I suppose there are links with united and universal, with the uni- prefix taking on the sense of shared or collective.”

 _Jesus_ , it’s only ten past seven. “James?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go for a walk.”


	2. A walk in winter

Well, he wasn’t wrong about the high-tech backpack. And James is wearing the kind of clothes that you could scale the north face of the Eiger in; all innovate fabrics and breathable layers; probably cost a fortune. Robbie himself is wearing an old pair of cords and a fleece, and a stout pair of leather walking boots he’s had for years. The boots are still in pretty good nick, down to the fact that he’s hardly ever worn them; he’s never really had much time or real inclination to traipse up hill and down dale. He’d bought the boots when Val was going through a phase of trying to organise family hikes at weekends. Of course, Morse and his grumbling demands on Robbie’s time had soon put paid to all that.

At least Robbie does have a decent waterproof jacket, and looking at the banks of ominous, grey clouds hanging low over the hills, he’s going to need it. James rummages in his backpack and produces two woolly hats—one navy blue, one dark green. They look hand-knitted and both have a touch of the tea cosy about them: not at all in keeping with the rest of James’ outfit. James pulls the blue one firmly onto his own head. It gives him a slight criminal air, but he doesn’t look half as ridiculous in it as most people would. He offers the green hat to Robbie.

“Nah, I’m fine.” He’s not spending the day wearing a tea cosy.

James frowns. “It’ll be really cold up on the ridgeway. You can lose a lot of body heat through the top of your head, you know.”

“Stop fussing, James; I’ll be fine. If I can stand around for hours at crime scenes in the middle of winter in a tie and suit, I can cope with a bit of a walk up a hill.” He knows James is being thoughtful, but Robbie really isn’t used to anyone making a fuss over him these days. “Come on, let’s get going.”

They head away from the pub where they’re leaving the car and walk through Ogbourne St. Edmund, a tidy, pretty village where the house prices would no doubt make Robbie’s eyes water. They walk along the quiet road that leads out of the village, and at a crossroads with an old red telephone box on the corner, they turn right onto a narrow lane, which clearly doesn’t get a lot of traffic, judging by the weeds growing up through the tarmac. The lane has a low stone wall on one side, and a hedge on the other. Over the wall, to the right, they can see where they’re headed: a series of rolling hills standing shoulder to shoulder, with a high, flat ridgeway running from one peak to the next. This time of year, the landscape is more brown than green, and the hedges look muddy and half-dead. But there are flashes of berries and rosehips, glossy and scarlet, amongst the tangle of thorns and twigs. Robbie and James reach the gate in the wall where the ridgeway path starts. 

They follow the path across a field and then through a stand of beech trees, leafless at this time of year but full of rooks, cosy in their nests but calling and complaining anyway. Of course, Robbie and James are used to walking together; over the last few years Robbie has spent an unfathomable number of hours striding through Oxford colleges and lanes with James at his side. At the start, he’d been unsure whether they’d be able to make it work, the strange almost-marriage of a detective inspector and his sergeant. Well, newly back in Oxford and still punch-drunk from grief, Robbie had been unsure whether he could make anything about the job work, or whether Innocent had actually been right, wanting to put him out to pasture. Back at the start, the fact that this strange, failed priest had somehow attached himself to Robbie did not, initially, seem like it was going to make things any easier. But they found that on the whole they worked well together. They found that they both valued loyalty and diligence and other rather old-fashioned qualities. And gradually they found a way, together, to make the job doable, tolerable; even enjoyable. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that Robbie feels a lightness in his step as he walks with James, taking in the bare winter beauty of his surroundings. He’d have been quite content to stay at home, chatting on the phone, but now they’re here, he finds that he’s definitely happy they came.

 

* * *

They’ve been going for just over an hour and are tackling the first steep section of their circular walk. They’re tramping along the edge of a large, square field, brown and scarred with stubble at this time of year, and they’re steadily gaining height. The going’s not so difficult that Robbie’s uncomfortably out of breath, but they have lapsed into silence as they start to have to work harder. The path is just a narrow strip of bare earth through the weeds at the edge of the field and they’re in single-file, with James in front. The ground is soft but not unpleasantly muddy and for a while Robbie finds that he’s trying to place his feet in James’ foot prints. Eventually, the effort of having to keep his stride just that little bit longer to match James’ ridiculous legs becomes tiring, so he stops and just concentrating on keeping up. 

They get to the top of the field, go through a gate in the hedge, cross a lane and then pick up the path again as it takes them up through some rough pasture. Black-faced sheep, most of them noticeably with lamb, watch them as they make their slow progress up the hill. The path steepens as they get close to the ridgeway at the top and Robbie’s having to breathe hard to keep himself moving. His back’s sweaty beneath his rucksack and he’s properly warm for the first time since they started walking. In a way it’s gratifying that he’s not the only one struggling for breath, though he doesn’t like to think what that says about James’ lungs.

The path takes them up and up, steeper and steeper, alongside a massive, chalky outcrop. Finally, they scramble up the last few yards of rough, gravelly path, round the end of the outcrop, and onto the short, springy grass of the ridgeway. As they step out onto the open, flat ground, the wind nearly has them over. Ahead of Robbie, James strides on, holding his arms out like spindly wings, allowing the air to catch at him and push him about. Robbie comes up alongside him and they walk forward together until they’re standing about five yards from the front edge of the ridgeway, where the land falls away into a carpet of fields dotted with small coppices of beech and oak. Off in the distance, a village huddles round its solid, Norman church. 

The wind’s taking Robbie’s breath away and he’s already cold again, but it’s worth it because the view is spectacular—beautiful even with the land rather bare and winterish, and with a backdrop of heavy, gunmetal clouds.

“Bloody hell, James.” The wind flings his words back at him and James doesn’t seem to have heard, so Robbie pats his arm. 

James turns and grins at him. “Worth the climb?” There’s colour in James’ cheeks and he looks exhilarated.

Robbie grins back. “Aye, not bad. I’m starving now, though. You ready for your lunch?” He points to a large boulder, smooth on its windward side. “We could sit against that—nice view with a bit of back support.”

“Anything for your back, sir.”

They get themselves sorted out by the boulder, and it _is_ pretty comfortable, not least because they’re sitting on some kind of mat that James has produced from his backpack, which apparently could give Mary Poppins’ carpetbag a run for its money. But the two of them are facing directly out over the edge of the ridgeway, so there’s not a scrap of shelter from the wind, and Robbie’s ears are freezing. He could do with that hat now but he’s buggered if he’s going to ask for it and give James the satisfaction. 

James nudges him and shoves the hat into his hands. _Sod it._ “Go on, then. If it means you’ll stop nagging me.” 

James gives him a pleased little smile and doesn’t go into an _I told you so_ routine, so it could be worse. Robbie puts the hat on and tries to keep the look of bliss off his face as his brain registers the warmth.

It turns out they’ve both brought cheese sandwiches—of sorts. Robbie’s got mature cheddar and pickle on crusty rolls, which elicits a lot of cheek from James along the lines of the maturity of the cheddar making it a suitable choice for a man of Robbie’s advanced years. Robbie really should have put his foot down about that kind of comment years ago to try to maintain the _appropriately hierarchical relationship_ recommended in all the inspector training handbooks. Too bloody late now. 

James has got goats’ cheese and rocket on sourdough—because of course he bloody has. “You actually buy rocket?!” Robbie has to lean in quite close to make himself heard over the wind.

James gives him a little shrug. “Are you casting aspersions on my sandwiches?”

“Perish the thought. I just think it’s a case of _all cheese sandwiches are equal, but some are more equal than others._ ”

James gives him an amused look. “Orwell would be thrilled to know his political message hasn’t been trivialised.” 

No, there really isn’t any hope of an _appropriately hierarchical relationship_ between the two of them; not now. Not ever, really, if Robbie’s honest with himself. James has been a sarcastic clever clogs right from the start . . . and Robbie’s always been more amused than offended by the stuff he comes out with. He knows Innocent thinks he should have maintained discipline with James a bit better, but mostly James is an exemplary sergeant with no need to be told who’s in charge, and the handful of times James has seriously disobeyed him and made disastrous decisions, Robbie’s always ended up more focussed on whether the stupid sod would be OK rather than any urge to throw the rule book at him. 

Which isn’t to say he’s never lost his temper with James, because he has, pretty spectacularly, a couple of times. But even then, it’s felt more personal, somehow; at those times it’s felt like the rift in their relationship was more important, more intolerable, than the breach of discipline. 

They eat and chat and share a flask of tea, but once they’ve put all their stuff away, they settle into silence for a while, each absorbed in the view and their own thoughts. Robbie’s quite a lot warmer now despite the wind, with the hat pulled low over his ears, and one side of him squashed comfortably against James.

And then, as they sit there, quiet and content, a red kite, feathers ruffling in the wind, floats up from below the edge of the ridgeway, not ten yards ahead, just resting on the up-draft. And then its mate appears below it and they both rise, effortlessly, calling to each other with unearthly, high whistles, their cries piercing and thrilling and utterly of the wild. James gives him a gentle nudge, obviously not wanting to do anything to disturb the birds, and Robbie leans a little harder against him in acknowledgement.

The kites wheel around each other and swoop down, apparently not to hunt, and not to mate, exactly, but simply, perhaps, to feel the wind streamlining their plumage as they shoot down, rusty brown missiles hurtling through the landscape. Again and again the kites disappear below the edge of the hill, and each time they soar up into view, Robbie’s spirits soars with them. For ten full minutes there is nothing except the solid earth beneath him, the warmth of James against his right arm, and two birds flying and dancing and gliding together, trusting the air without thought, perfectly themselves.

Eventually, the birds begin to move away, circling further and further eastwards, until at last they dive into the valley at the far side of the next hill and don’t reappear. Robbie and James wait and wait but really, they know; they can feel that the kites have gone; that they are, once again, alone at the top of the ridgeway. Robbie can’t quite believe what they’ve just witnessed. “Have you ever seen anything like that, I mean that close up? Incredible.”

James is smiling. He shakes his head. “I know; astonishing. They looked so at home in the landscape; so perfectly in tune with the elements.”

“And in tune with each other. Did you see how they kept turning and hovering together; barely a foot between them?” 

“I saw.”

Robbie’s never really thought about the strength of the bond between a pair of birds—why would he? Most of his working life is spent trying to sort out the mess when the bonds between humans break apart disastrously, and that’s quite enough to think about. But he’s feeling moved by how the kites kept calling to each other, checking that the other was still nearby. He’s delighted that they seemed to be doing their aerial acrobatics together just for the joy of it. It occurs to him that maybe humans could learn a thing or two from them.


	3. The pearl of great price

Robbie thought the going would be easier on the way down the far side of the hill, but if anything it’s even harder work. It’s steep and there’s barely a path, just a thin layer of scree that keeps moving under his feet, making his heart lurch each time he almost loses his footing. So much for being perfectly at home in the landscape. 

But after twenty minutes of unpleasant skating and sliding their way down, they reach rough grass again, and that, in turn, takes them to a muddy farm track with high hedges on both sides. The hedges are too high to see over, and, with a gloomy sky above them heavy with the promise of rain, everything suddenly feels dark and closed-in after the space and air up on the top of the ridge. They tramp along the track for about half a mile until they reach a rusting metal gate across a gap in the hedge. On the other side of the hedge is a field of grass, gently sloping down away from them; the rest of the valley unfolding beyond the far edge of the field. They stop for a drink of water and lean on the gate, watching the wind move in waves through the grass. Immense, dark clouds are rolling, low and ominous, across the field, barely clearing the ridgeway Robbie and James have just left behind. 

Suddenly, the bank of grey-black cloud directly ahead of them pulls apart and a narrow, intensely bright shaft of light pierces the gloom and forms a pool in the middle of the field. It’s extraordinary that they were here, leaning on this battered, old gate, at the exact moment when the clouds parted. If they had walked along the track a little quicker; if they had been grumbling about the weather or work and hadn’t even noticed the gate: a thousand perfectly reasonable sets of circumstances could have steered them away from this moment; the moment when the universe conspired to pour a stream of perfect silver into a field, just for them.

Robbie feels dazed by it all; by the whole day, really. “ _God_ , James.”

“I know.” James sounds as awed as Robbie feels. 

They watch the solitary beam—more akin to moonlight than sunlight—catch the edges of the clouds alight, and make the grass blaze white and silver and the strangest, palest green. 

James leans towards him. “I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while.”

“Go on.”

“The whole thing?”

“Aye.” If ever there was a time for James to recite poetry at him, it’s now.

“I have seen the sun break through  
to illuminate a small field  
for a while, and gone my way  
and forgotten it. But that was the  
pearl of great price, the one field that had  
treasure in it. I realise now  
that I must give all that I have  
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after  
an imagined past. It is the turning  
aside like Moses to the miracle  
of the lit bush, to a brightness  
that seemed as transitory as your youth  
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.”

Robbie’s lost for words and the hairs on the back of his neck are prickling. Maybe there’s static in the air? Maybe there’s going to be a proper storm, with thunder and lightening?

James clearly interprets his silence as an invitation to carry on. “It’s about the importance of paying attention; the poet felt that the importance of the act of _turning aside_ from busyness and the commonplace should be emphasising just as much as the miracle itself. It’s a warning not to miss something vitally important just by getting lost in the daily grind. And it’s about the transitory nature of experience, including life-changing experience.”

James stops, perhaps thinking he’s boring Robbie—which he isn’t. It’s just . . . it’s just that Robbie can’t bring himself to follow their usual pattern, where James quotes some poet or Shakespeare or some such, and Robbie grumbles or does his simple, northern copper act. Robbie looks out over the field, the rippling grass, the shaft of light already starting to dissipate. He doesn’t want to miss a single second of this. “Give me the poem again.” He doesn’t have to look—he can feel James’ surprise.

“I have seen the sun break through  
to illuminate a small field  
for a while, and gone my way  
and forgotten it. But that was the  
pearl of great price, the one field that had  
treasure in it.”

As James talks, Robbie glances down to the where their hands are resting on the top bar of the gate. There’s barely an inch between James’ left hand and Robbie’s right. If either one of them had put their hand down just a fraction nearer, they’d be touching.

“I realise now  
that I must give all that I have  
to possess it. Life is not hurrying  
on to a receding future, nor hankering after  
an imagined past.”

Well, Robbie’s past wasn’t bloody imagined. Val wasn’t imagined. Morse wasn’t. But yes, it’s true, though it’s painful to acknowledge, the years of hankering didn’t solve anything; didn’t do him any favours at all. He sighs, deeply. He knows that the best of his attention has been in the past for so long that he’s out of the habit of really being here in the present. Well, he can do it for work, he can bring himself fully into the moment at a crime scene in some grotty room or shed with blood-spattered walls, seeing and feeling his way into what happened to some poor sod. But beyond that, to the things that really matter in his own life? Has he really paid attention, really properly paid attention to the people around him? To his kids? To James? He knows he does a pretty good impersonation of someone who’s switched on and taking everything in, but he knows he’s missed things, important things; he must have.

“It is the turning  
aside like Moses to the miracle  
of the lit bush,” 

As he watches, the clouds rearrange themselves, surging into each other, and the ray of light illuminating their field narrows and narrows and gets more and more intense, until finally it vanishes as the two great banks of clouds merge to form one extraordinary, brooding sky the colour of ink and the night sea. James sighs as the shaft of light disappears, but Robbie has no sense of something being over. Quite the contrary.

“to a brightness  
that seemed as transitory as your youth  
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.”

Robbie isn’t much of a one for poetry, but he feels like he gets this one, like it’s saying something important to him. “Thank you.”

“You like it?” James sounds surprised; pleased. 

“I do. Who wrote it?”

“R. S. Thomas. He was a priest-poet; Anglican.” The latter is offered with a touch of apology, though Robbie isn’t sure if it’s for quoting a priest or something to do with James’ views on Anglicans.

“So, is it meant to be religious then, the poem?”

“Well, Thomas thought so, definitely. There are references to the Bible all the way through it. He’s yearning to glimpse the Eternal, the Kingdom of God.”

“Right.” That’s not what Robbie was getting from the poem. He can see what James is saying—Moses, the burning bush and all that, but there’s something else there, something that matters to Robbie, but he can’t quite get it into thoughts.

“Scholars also think of Thomas as a nature mystic; that he was suggesting that God could be experienced in nature; in the hills and the clouds and the shafts of light bursting through. And there are plenty of other people whose interpretations of the poem are really rather different to Thomas’ own view of it.”

Robbie’s a bit taken aback. “Surely the poet should know what his own poem is about, shouldn’t he?”

“Well, poems are odd things; they can mean different things to different people, and the poet sometimes doesn’t see the whole story, even though they’ve written it. There could be a multitude of meanings and interpretations, all containing some truth, some validity. Although R. S. Thomas might not have seen it that way; by all accounts he was an uncompromising git, to put it mildly.”

Robbie looks down. He doesn’t know which one of them moved their hand, but the gap’s even smaller now. He wasn’t aware of moving his but sometimes things happen when he’s not paying attention. And what does it mean, the moving of their hands nearer to each other? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it could have a multitude of meanings, though it’s a bit fanciful to see the slow, gravitational pull of their hands towards each other as some kind of poetry.

The rooks in the trees along the edge of the field are taking off from their nests one or two at a time, perhaps trying to judge the strength of the approaching storm. They drop back down into the relative shelter of the branches, reporting back to their mates with harsh, devoted calls.

Robbie feels the moment when James joins him in the drama, in the writing of the poem of the movement of their hands. He feels James suddenly snap to attention, though there’s nothing to see, outwardly. A minute passes during which the distance between their hands neither grows nor diminishes, but the energy between them soars, like a red kite rocketing up through the cold, winter air.

“What does the poem mean to you, James?”

It’s a while before James answers. He sweeps across the field and hills with the hand that isn’t held close to Robbie’s by mysterious forces. “It’s difficult to see all this and my mind not reach for . . .” He stops. 

No hands move, but the rain-heavy clouds continue to rumble overhead. 

James starts again with a shrug. “I’m much less certain these days, about what God is. But here, right now . . .”

The wind whips through the grass, and James, characteristically, offers no further clarity on the nature of God. Instead, he turns the question back to Robbie. “What about you?” I assume for you there’s nothing miraculous, nothing God-like, here? No pearl of great price?”

How can such a small distance, a matter of half an inch now, a quarter of an inch even, feel as vast as the storm-filled sky above them?

“There’s nothing religious here for me. God isn’t someone I think much about, even out here, with all this.” He looks towards the billowing clouds; the trees as they shiver in the wind.

James nods.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything, though.” His heart is beating wildly in his chest; his hand seems to be welded to the spot. “Maybe we see the poem differently. Maybe the treasure here for me is different to the treasure for you?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees James tilt his head back to watch the storm clouds surging above them. When James finally answers, he speaks slowly, deliberately. “It is possible for me to value more than one kind of treasure, you know.”

Robbie has to hold tightly onto the gate. “I’m not quite sure I follow you, James.”

James turns and looks directly at him for the first time in what seems like hours. “Yes you do.”

He feels the slight pressure of James’ hand against his. Further down the valley the clouds are finally emptying their rain onto the land below and Robbie can’t see where the sky ends and the land begins.

James places his hand carefully over Robbie’s. “OK?”

Robbie turns towards him. _Like Moses to the miracle._ “Yes. Good.” He doesn’t seem to have many words at his disposal.

James smiles at him a little shyly, and raises an eyebrow as if to say _look at us; who’d have thought?_ Who, indeed? Although God knows there’ve been signs; Robbie just hasn’t been paying proper attention. 

The first drops of rain hit them like pebbles, heavy and cold. “Maybe it’s time to head back to the car, James? The heavens are going to really open any minute.”

Both hands stay exactly where they are on the gate.

James leans closer to him. “I feel reluctant to go.”

“I know. Me too.” 

They watch the deluge approach, just half a field away now. James shakes his head. “We’re going to get absolutely soaked. That rain is epic.”

“Biblical, even.”

The wind starts slapping the raindrops into their faces; Robbie can’t remember the last time he felt so alive.

They stand there, together, as the storm surrounds them. The rain is astonishingly loud and falling in curtains so thick that the hills and trees disappear. The only things left in the world are Robbie and James, an old, rusted gate, and a field—their field. 

James squeezes his hand. “Happy New Year.”

Robbie squeezes back. “Happy New Year.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story was, of course, inspired by the beautiful poem The Bright Field, by R. S. Thomas.
> 
> He would not have approved! (He notoriously disapproved of almost everything, including washing machines and the English!)


End file.
